The Strategy of Production Operation for Extended Lateral Shale Wells

Abstract

This paper reviews the U.S. shale well drilling and completion strategies in recent years. A data-driven approach is taken to correlate the production performance to the lateral length focusing on the Midland basin and Delaware basin. Six lateral length cases were studied, ranging from 5 thousand to 17.5 thousand feet. To investigate the shale well lateral length impact on production performance, multi-disciplinary studies were conducted by taking into account the combinations of time-dependent fluid properties, well trajectory, reservoir characteristics, completion design, and wellbore multiphase flow effect. Artificial lift and operational strategies were discussed and developed for long lateral length wells. Economics analysis was performed to study the feasibility and sustainability of production operation strategies.

Evaluation and optimization of drilling efficiency while drilling based on improved rock-breaking specific energy model of bit

“…Horizontal wells have remarkable advantages in cutting drilling cost and increasing oil/gas recovery, thus they act more and more important roles in the development of unconventional oil/gas (such as shale oil/gas, tight oil/gas and coalbed methane) as the length of horizontal section increases significantly in the past few decades. [1][2][3][4] In 2019, the longest horizontal section drilled in shale formation reaches 5638m, wells drilled with over 4800m horizontal length occupies 6% approximately and 45% drilled wells has larger horizontal length than 3200m in America. [5] When it comes to China, although the drilling technology has improved much [6,7] , the horizontal extension distance of most wells has not exceeded 2500m until now [8,9] , which becomes a limitation for the development of unconventional oil/gas to a better level.…”